Digital Commons Network^™

Three Essays On Social Justice Issues: Health, Gender, And Policing, Travis B. Campbell

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation empirically examines three pressing social justice issues in the United States. In the first chapter, titled "Black Lives Matter's Effect on Police Lethal Use-of-force," I explore the influence of Black Lives Matter protests on police lethal use-of-force. A difference-in-differences design finds census places with protests experienced a 15% to 20% decrease in police homicides from 2014 through 2019, around 300 fewer deaths. This decrease was prominent when protests were large or frequent. Potential mechanisms behind the reduction include police agencies obtaining body-worn cameras to curtail force and depolicing following a so-called `Ferguson Effect.' Fewer property crimes, but more …

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch: Labor In Open Source Systems Implementations, Jaime Taylor

University Libraries Presentations Series

Open source softwares are often chosen because of – perceived or real – cost savings. Cost savings calculations need to account for the different & increased labor necessary to open source software projects. This doesn’t always happen. If your library undertakes a large project, staff cannot work on that project while also performing their regular duties. Without reduced duties or additional staff, either regular or project work will be undone or done poorly; staff will be overworked & burnt out; the project will exceed projected timelines & resources.

Work And Social Reproduction In Rural India: Lessons From Time-Use Data, Smriti Rao, Smita Ramnarain, Sirisha Naidu, Anupama Uppal, Avanti Mukherjee

PERI Working Papers

Even as the literature on work in the Global South acknowledges the importance of forms of non-waged work, it has not sufficiently incorporated consideration of the labor of social reproduction. We propose understanding work through four conceptual dyads: waged productive labor, non-waged productive labor, waged reproductive labor, and non-waged reproductive labor. Through an in-depth description of three specific cases from a Time Use Survey we conducted in rural Punjab, India, we argue not only that all four dyads are required to encompass the world of work, but that this more expansive conceptualization can help us produce richer analyses of the …

A General Equilibrium Analysis Of The Impact Of The Covid-19 Outbreak On Turkey’S Economy And A Policy Alternative To Protect Labor Incomes, Ebru Voyvoda, A. Erinç Yeldan

PERI Working Papers

The COVID-19 pandemic is being experienced as a multidimensional systemic crisis based on the simultaneous manifestations of the supply, demand, and financial shocks. These effects have already been realized in the exacerbation of deep inequalities in income distribution, in functional, regional, and gender terms; in access to public services that are commercialized; and therefore, in an environment where poverty is experienced

with social exclusion due to severe inequalities of income.

The crisis has hit the Turkish economy under a conjuncture where the adverse effects of the 2018 financial turbulence have not yet been alleviated, and the macroeconomic balances have not …

Food And Beverage Staffing Changes In Nevada Resorts After The Great Recession, Toni Repetti, Liheng Zhang

Journal of Hospitality Financial Management

With profit margins averagins 5-7% and labor costs of 30-55% of revenue, restaurant managers need to carefully monitor expenses to maintain these already low profit margins. This study evaluates food and beverage departments within Nevada casinos from 2000 to 2018 to see if managers exhibited expense preference behavior prior to the Great Recession. Three models were tested: number of employees, salaries and wages, and total payroll. Results show that in all three models, there is a significant decrease postrecession versus prerecession, with a decrease of 12.8% in employees, 4.5% in salaries and wages, and 9.1% in total payroll. Only the …

The Historical And Legal Creation Of A Fissured Workplace: The Case Of Franchising, Brian Callaci

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the consequences of institutional change in capitalist firms, focusing on vertical dis-integration, the legal boundaries of the firm and what David Weil has called workplace "fissuring," in which corporations place intermediaries (subcontractors, temp agencies, or franchisees) between themselves and workers, often with negative consequences for workers. It focuses specifically on franchising, a type of fissured workplace in which one firm outsources retail operations to smaller, legally independent franchisees. The first chapter uses archival sources to identify the legal and policy changes driving workplace fissuring in the franchising context: specifically the relaxing of antitrust prohibitions on vertical restraints …

Three Essays On Sustainable Development In China: Social, Economic And Environmental Aspects, Ying Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

The first essay focuses on the role of the hukou (i.e. Household Registration System) with full awareness of the economic system it operates under, and the development model it assists. I find that hukou’s main role in the planned economy was to assist socialist industrialization while averting the Lewis development model, a development strategy based on unlimited supply of labors from the rural sector, largely adopted in developing countries. In the market reform period, hukou performed exactly the opposite function, which is to assist the Lewis model based on the unlimited supply of rural surplus labor “released” from the …

Healthy, Wealthy, And Wise: How Corporate Power Shaped The Affordable Care Act, Kevin Young, Michael Schwartz

History Department Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

Rebranding Diversity: Colorblind Racism Inside The U.S. Advertising Industry, Christopher Boulton

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines race inequality inside the United States advertising industry. Based on qualitative fieldwork conducted at three large agencies in New York City during the summer of 2010 (including ethnographic observations, affinity-based focus groups, in-depth interviews, and open-ended surveys), I argue that the industry's good faith effort to diversify through internship-based affirmative action programs is overwhelmed by the more widespread material practices of closed network hiring--a system that advantages affluent Whites through referral hires, subjective notions of "chemistry" or "fit," and outright nepotism through "must-hires." Furthermore, the discriminatory nature of White affirmative action is hidden from view, masked by …

Excess Return Estimate And Risk Factors In Hospitality Firms, Genti Lagji

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Calculating the expected return has been a longstanding issue in the finance. There is a positive correlation between the undertaken risk and excess return (or loss) but numerous variables need to be considered. This study builds on the Fama and French formula and adds factors unique to the hospitality industry such as labor cost and diversification in order to get results that are a tailored to the hospitality industry. Active hotel and restaurants companies (SIC 7011 and 5812 respectively) in the 2000-2009 period were analyzed in separate samples. The labor cost improves the explanatory on both samples and the diversification …

Labor Turnover In The Child-Care Industry: Voice And Exit, Lynn A. Hatch

Open Access Dissertations

What relationship exists between working conditions and teacher turnover in child-care (early care and education) programs? Research has shown high staff turnover is a major factor affecting the quality of care. Using a new survey and data set I designed of union and randomly selected non-union programs in Massachusetts, I examine factors other than compensation that might be related to lower teacher turnover. Focusing on different institutional settings, including unionization and regional unemployment, I use economist Albert Hirschman’s theory of exit, voice and loyalty to see if “voice” alternatives to quitting are an effective method of reducing exits. “Voice” alternatives …

The Future Of Organized Labor In American Politics, Gerald Friedman

Economics Department Faculty Publications Series

No abstract provided.

Labor's Home Front: The American Federation Of Labor During World War Ii, Gerald Friedman

Economics Department Faculty Publications Series

No abstract provided.

Labour Rights As Human Rights, Gerald Friedman

Economics Department Faculty Publications Series

No abstract provided.

Economic Sustainability Plan For Adams, Massachusetts: Ten Year Projection Plan, Center For Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

The client for this project is James Leitch, The town administrator for the Town of Adams. In addition, we are working in close conjunction with the Center for Economic Technology (C.E.T.).

The purpose of this project is to assist Adams in the creation of a ten year economic action plan, which is only one-third of Adams proposed Comprehensive Sustainability Plan. The Comprehensive Plan is to be completed by the merger of three plans: the 1997 University of Massachusetts Landscape Architecture Studio Report on environmental elements within the Town, our 1998 Economic Action Plan, and a Social Plan, to be developed …

Women's Work And Women's Households: Gender Bias In The U.S. Census, Nancy Folbre, Marjorie Abel

Economics Department Faculty Publications Series

No abstract provided.